‘Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’ Review: A Soulful Celebration of the Live-in-Concert Bruce, Past and Present
variety.comOwen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic When Bruce Springsteen stands onstage, staring out at the crowd, or with his head bowed, and cocks his guitar behind him, that pose is now as iconic as that of the young Abraham Lincoln holding an ax over his shoulder.
It’s a mythic image of American nobility. In “Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band,” we follow Springsteen, in his first concerts since the pandemic, as he reconnects with his fabled band and they rehearse for six days and go out on a tour that will take them from the U.S.
to Europe, from 2023 to 2024. All of this is intercut with grainy footage of Bruce performing in the ’70s and early ’80s. At this point, we’re so accustomed to the older, statelier Bruce that when we see some of the earlier clips, it’s almost shocking to register just how much he moved around onstage.
He bopped in a way that was crazy and flamboyant. It’s pointed out in the documentary that the key reason he originally recruited his buddy Steven Van Zandt to be the band’s guitarist was so that he — Bruce — could liberate himself from holding a guitar.
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